caulfield12

https://www.mlb.com/pirates/history/records-stats-awards/postseason-results Sure, but even the Pirates have 12 post-season appearances and two World Series titles from the Clemente Era through today, 1960-2015. Nobody is arguing that the White Sox are the worst franchise in baseball today...maybe the worst off-season COMPARED to fan expectations, that's more or less accurate for the Top 10-12 teams in MLB. If it's not the White Sox, it's arguably the Padres.

https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/95x05i/graphic_of_total_mlb_postseason_appearances/ This graphic is pretty amazing, bookends with NYY and the Marlins (2/2, now 2 WS out of 3 total appearances after 2021 Covid) The White Sox now have 11 appearances, so we would be somewhere around 17th in terms of total post-season appearances. The real problem is when you start dividing those appearances by total opportunities, 11 over 121 possible seasons. That puts the White Sox right at the very bottom along with the Seattle Mariners. Even the Cubs would be at 20, and the Indians 14.

If you add 1984-1997, probably closer to 21/22. Otoh, if it's just 2000~2012, something like 6 or 7. If you go back to All-Time Win/Loss percentage (dating back to 1901), the White Sox are actually 10th. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_all-time_Major_League_Baseball_win–loss_records Here’s a list of all the teams have finished in second place for four or more seasons in a row: 8 consecutive seasons 1998-2005 Red Sox, 5 consecutive seasons 2002-2006 Astros, 5 consecutive seasons 1965-1969 Giants, 4 consecutive seasons 1996-1999 White Sox, 4 consecutive seasons 1985-1988 Reds, 4 consecutive seasons 1970-1973 Dodgers Second place finishes in 1957, 1958, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1972, 1990, 1991, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2010, 2012, 2020 1921-1956 pretty much a barren wasteland of mediocrity...only 7 third places finishes, including five consecutive from 1952-1956

Boras usually goes for guarantees...then incentives are the cherry on top. Because that locks in his commissions.

Ask SF Giants fans if they prefer to be the Dodgers last season...losing in the NLCS? Or winning the division but getting knocked out early?

It would have to be a player option for $22-26 million in 2023 for that to make any sense to the Boras camp.

The White Sox don't seem to care all that much about picks or they would have offered Rodon a QO...and the impact would likely be post-2024/25 regardless.

Repeating that isn't going to make it happen. They would go be us Pollock instead, and he would be injured for 65% of the season.

And a 10-15% cut from each year of his long term extension signed upon leaving the Sox at end of 2022.

Well, basically you have Mendick and whatever comes out of the DFA period this next week and at the end of April as rosters shrink down to normal numbers. But the odds are, at best, 1 in 4 that you're going to get a 1.5-2.0 fWAR 2B and 75% you're going to have to turn around and replace him again, just like Eaton and Mazara in RF. All those wasted contract dollars add up, to the point where it would have been much more effective to pay $10-15 million for a longer-term solution.

It would have been simple enough to sign Suzuki, even. (But no, we'd block Colas and Cespedes!!!) But at least you'd finally have some minor league depth that would allow you NOT to trade off the MLB roster at the TDL, opening up more holes on the roster. We tried to strengthen a gap in the levee, but three additional holes were sprung as a result. It's like those old black & whites of the Three Stooges bailing water out of a sinking boat. (I remember thinking all the way back in 2017 that we had too many utility infielders, as back then it was Lawrie, Leury, Saladino and Yolmer. Seems we haven't made significant progress since then, other than handing Leury a lifetime contract. Bring back one-year wonder Brent Lillibridge!!!)

0.3, -0.6, 0.3, 1.5 It's almost the complete opposite of Michael Conforto. We're totally ignoring his age 30-32 seasons (because that player has zero value for those seasons), then banking on a repeat of his age 33 season. I miss the days of extrapolating Madrigal numbers into 2-3 fWAR-ish seasons.

That seems like a perfectly valid reason not to add a LH hitter. The dreaded White Sox jinx at 2B, RF, DH, especially since 2011. Because if we do acquire players for these slots, they suddenly won't look like the numbers on the back of their baseball card anymore. Seems about as logical as our team-building approach in the last calendar year.

Finding patterns, links and connections between seemingly disparate elements at least has its advantages in personal finance/investing.

No Erstad, lol?

Lillian will be distraught.

But how many non Top 10-15 payroll teams would want Kimbrel at the TDL? How many of those same teams are not going to be eventual competitors at some point in the postseason? Let’s say he is 2021 first half Kimbrel, you basically can’t trade him because then he’s pitching the way and fitting into then pen the way he was supposed to LAST year. Unless you get an absolute haul, but then every team knows we want to clear payroll space as well. Hahn seems boxed in every direction you think this through. These flipping theoretically acquired prospects scenarios seem even more of a reach…

It’s not like they couldn’t get a 2B at the trade deadline…if Romy flopped. There are always a handful available at the deadline.

Veteran Grit, leadership and Energizer Bunny enthusiasm…

Looks like a really good chance of Riley Greene breaking camp with Tigers, Torkelson 50/50.

We would be better off with Gus “The Polka King” Polinski and Tom Paciorek in RF.

I voted D, and now feel I was being too kind, lol. I think the Bs and Cs are assumptions we have to do something at some point about starting pitching and Kimbrel…kind of like awarding a Nobel Prize for something that could theoretically happen in the future but is not guaranteed to actually transpire. D- should have been an option, although that connotes actually trying…whereas the grade would have been higher simply doing nothing but a QO for Rodon and declining the Kimbrel option and say signing Escobar or even Miller.

Leury (as DH), Harrison AND Engel at the bottom of the lineup…yuck! But we should trust this front office. Because they’ve clearly earned the benefit of the doubt this offseason (so far).

I’m going to trust the Giants’ sticker price tolerance over the Sox assessment at this point. For SF, they’re in a transition phase now with a lowered payroll (minus Posey) of strategically retooling on the fly in the toughest division outside the AL East. It’s almost like they are due for a mistake, with how well they’ve managed pitching assets and maximized what looks like an average or even below average everyday lineup offensively. But just two years makes a lot of sense with where that roster is vis a vis the Dodgers and Padres.

Well, it’s not like that money was ever going to be reallocated to Conforto regardless… But it’s just like the Sox to be haggling over $2-3 million only to get left holding the bag for 5x much. Hahn has to be 1) hoping and praying for closer issues or injuries from a team with a Top 10-15 payroll and 2) hoping that Kimbrel doesn’t go further south, become a daily distraction or even create some type of closer controversy if Hendriks blows 2-3 early saves. We’ve reached the point of making Kimbrel the closer again just to trade him (Hendriks volunteering to step aside) or a few even arguing they should now trade Hendriks in order to accommodate Kimbrel. They just keep compounding the original mistake many times over when the prudent move all along was to admit it was a bad fit (they can even assert it was an inspired, outside the box idea) and move on at only a $1 million loss for 2022.